


crowning glory

by village_skeptic



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Childhood Hijinks, F/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Season 1, beanie origin story, teenage crushes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 20:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16541654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/village_skeptic/pseuds/village_skeptic
Summary: “You know, Juggie, itisgetting a little long, isn’t it?” she says, reaching up to tug gently on an errant curl that had escaped the beanie.Veronica gets the wrong idea, Betty gets sweetly stubborn, and Jughead gets a haircut.





	crowning glory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stillscape](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillscape/gifts).



It begins, as so many things seemed to these days, with Veronica Lodge.

He’d had a possible manuscript breakthrough while waiting in the lunch line, so he’s been temporarily ignoring everyone else at the table while he scribbles down some sentence fragments in the margins of his biology notes. Since they’d finished the unit on the excretory system, the blank space on the page was by far the most useful thing in his notebook.

Not that it ever really been a question, but Jughead has definitely decided that he prefers _rhetorical_ bile to the real, splashy stuff. 

He’s just outlined a possible solution to the transition that had been giving him hell when he gets that creepy, preternatural feeling of someone’s eyes on him. And sure enough, when he looks up, he sees Veronica watching him with a purebred-Persian-cat-that-ate-the-canary smile.

“I’ve figured out your secret, Jughead.”

It’s a testament to how complicated his life is right now that he’s honestly not sure to which secret she’s referring. Does she mean Dilton Doiley’s poorly-concealed gun fetish? His father’s barely-functional alcoholism – or worse yet, his gang affiliation? Or, most embarrassingly, the fact that Jughead himself is presently sleeping in a disused janitor’s closet here in the east wing of Riverdale High, like some sort of white trash Harry Potter?

The mystery is in no way clarified when she reaches across the lunch table to rest her hand atop his briefly, and says, with great sincerity, “And don’t worry. I approve completely.”

And _this_ is so strange and unexpected that for one brief, dizzying instant, he thinks that Veronica has somehow figured out his _other_ secret, the one that he hasn’t even quite been able to admit to himself yet.

In that second, his eyes flick over to Betty – a dead giveaway, he knows, if this is some sort of _gotcha!_ test that Veronica’s devised for her own fiendish amusement.

But fortunately it’s Veronica herself who saves him from any further self-incrimination, albeit with a flood of increasingly incomprehensible verbiage:

“As much as I hate to invoke Jared Leto or Johnny Depp in our present #MeToo era…on this singular point, their younger selves should really be your spiritual guide. Heartthrob grunge, if you will. You _just_ don’t have the body for the full-on Khal Drogo look – and relax please, I mean ‘body’ as in volume, not a critique of your wiry physique. It’s a texture issue, and there’s simply nothing to be done about it. And yes, I _know_ that Orlando Bloom pulled it off, but hello, wig? Not to mention the whole elven look is a bit try-hard, honestly. There’s Rivendell, and there’s Riverdale, and ne’er the twain _should_ meet, if you ask me.”

With that, she takes a satisfied sip from her milk carton, and folds her hands, looking for all the world as if she’s about to start taking questions at a press conference.

And, well, he has a few. Namely -

“Veronica, _what_ are you talking about?”

She looks taken aback for a second, before furrowing her no doubt expensively-groomed brow in irritation.

“You’re growing out your hair, obviously. Hence the ever-present hat, to keep it covered during the awkward Myles Standish stage.”  
  
  
  
  
  
The recent mysterious death of Jason Blossom has raised a lot of questions in Jughead’s mind – mostly of the investigative and narrative kind rather than the eschatological. But the next ten minutes of conversation at the cafeteria table have him wondering: is he actually _already in hell?_

At first, Veronica refuses to be convinced that he is not secretly growing out his hair; then eventually, she pivots to making the case that he _should_ be growing it long.

“You are _squandering_ your bone structure, Jughead – not to mention your youth! When else in your life will you have this kind of freedom to experiment with your aesthetic?”

In the end, it’s only a skillful redirect from Betty that gets her off the topic.

“Okay, but V, those _Game of Thrones_ and _Lord of the Rings_ references? I can’t believe you’ve been concealing your secret fantasy nerd credentials from Kevin this whole time!” she teases.

“Very funny, B,” says Veronica fondly, shooting Betty a tolerant smile. “You’re right, Veronica Lodge doesn’t _do_ genre – generally speaking. But…there’s a difference between having discerning taste and being behind the trends. And I must say, keeping up with the sword and sorcery set isn’t too distasteful a chore when there’s a _chateaubriand_ like Jason Momoa on the menu…”

From there, the conversation devolves into Veronica and Kevin ranking the hottest Hollywood hunks – a topic that, fortunately, no one seems to expect him to have an opinion about.

(Archie, on the other hand, seems curiously invested in the discussion, glancing up several times from the lyrics that he’s workshopping with Val.)

Somewhere in the middle of Veronica’s passionate declaration that Justin Bieber’s past crimes _should_ in fact factor into an assessment of his present abs, Betty catches his eye and gives him the smallest of smug smiles, and he figures it’s okay to give her a little nudge, wordlessly communicating _thanks for the save._

When she nudges him right back, he quickly takes a big bite of his cheeseburger to hide the smile that threatens to steal across his own face.  
  
  
  
  
  
Despite rescuing him at lunch time, though, Betty’s the one who raises the issue again later that afternoon.

The autumn sun is slanting over the desks in the _Blue and Gold_ room, where they’ve been fiddling with the layout for a feature on online college scams for over an hour now. The words are starting to blur in front of him, and so he’s almost ready to suggest that they call it a day and pick it up tomorrow, when Betty turns to him with what he instantly recognizes as a too-casual, too-innocent look on her face.

“You know, Juggie, it _is_ getting a little long, isn’t it?” she says, reaching up to tug gently on an errant curl that had escaped the beanie.

“ _Et tu_ , Betts?” he exclaims, jerking his head away in mock outrage.

The motion makes her fingertips brush very lightly down his cheek, and he has to clear his throat before continuing.

“Look, I’ve been busy, OK? I think that Flutesnoot is trying to perfect the concept of death by homework, not to mention that we’re sending an issue of the _Blue and Gold_ to press every Thursday. Then, of course, there’s that little thing where we’re trying to _investigate a murder_ –”

“I could trim it for you, if you wanted,” Betty offers, cutting him off mid-justification.

“Oh yeah,” he scoffs, grinning down at her, “because you have _such_ a great history with that.”  
  
  
  
  
  
The incident in question had happened when they were eight, and had involved Jughead’s discovery of a ten dollar bill in an old library book, a fortuitously-timed sale on penny candy, and Archie’s newfound quest to blow the world’s largest chewing gum bubble.

Unfortunately, Archie’s dream had blown up in his face – or rather, quite literally in both his face _and_ in Jughead’s, fusing them together at the scalp with six pieces of well-chewed Dubba Yum.

Betty’s reluctant intervention had freed them at least from that particular indignity, but there was no escaping the kerfuffle that ensued when Mary Andrews walked into Archie’s bedroom to find the little blonde neighbor girl using her best sewing scissors to snip the last of the mess out of Jughead’s hair – and her own son, serenely chewing away on a new wad of gum as he contemplated the first phase of Betty’s handiwork in the mirror.

Betty _had_ just been trying to help. Still, when she found out what had happened, Alice Cooper grounded her for two weeks with no TV, because Alice Cooper was constitutionally incapable of not overreacting.

Archie, it was immediately determined, would have to pay for a new haircut out of his birthday money—

“—and you’ll go to the barber _when_ I have the time to take you there, and not a minute sooner!” declared Mary, who had been in her final year of law school then and who had clearly arrived at the end of her rope. “Now. Get your backpacks, both of you, because it is mandatory homework and study time at the dining room table, _for all of us_ , until your fathers get back.”

Jughead had stayed quiet for the rest of the afternoon, eyes fixed on his math book, but he found his attention wandering away from long division and to thoughts of what his mom and dad would say when they saw the results of the afternoon’s mishap.

Both his parents definitely had shorter tempers these days. This week had been especially hard. Jellybean had been fussy for days, refusing her bottle and keeping everyone awake at night crying, until one morning at breakfast Jughead peered inside her wailing mouth and discovered that she was cutting a tooth. She quieted right down once his dad rubbed a little whiskey on her gums, but by then his parents seemed to have absorbed her irritability, slamming doors and snapping at each other.

So when the A&J Construction truck pulled up outside the Andrews house that night, Jughead had felt his stomach tie itself in knots. He’d heard Fred’s key in the lock, and both men’s laughter – which cut off abruptly as Mary met them at the door.

Then, three sets of footsteps approached, and he could hear Mrs. Andrews’ words more clearly now:

“…I’m so _sorry_ , FP, I had no idea they’d even _bought_ all that candy, and when I got up there, she’d already taken the scissors to both of them. I would have tried to even it out, but I didn’t want to make anything worse, especially until you and Gladys had the chance to see -”

His dad snorted, and one hand came down heavily, gripping both his and Archie’s shirt collars.

“Boys, you’ve earned the ultimate punishment this time,” he had intoned, with clear menace in his voice.

And with that, he began to knuckle both of them fiercely, right on the bald spots Betty had left, alternating back and forth until he and Archie were both shrieking with laughter and trying to pummel him in self-defense.

“You think you can defy me?” he had bellowed between guffaws. “No one – NO ONE – escapes the wrath of FP Jones, the Noogie King!”

With a final flourish against Jughead’s skull, he let them go, and turned, chuckling, to face the other parents. Archie’s dad was struggling to hide a grin, while Archie’s mom looked thoroughly unimpressed with all of them.

“Honestly, FP, you’re about as mature as they are.”

“It’s just hair, Mary,” said his dad, running a hand through his own. “And they’re just kids. Couple of weeks from now, it’ll be like nothing ever happened.” 

He ducked into the kitchen and came back carrying the cordless phone. This, he tossed at Mr. Andrews, who caught it with the ease of someone who had spent the last thirty years having baseballs, car keys, spirit levels and various other objects lobbed at him by FP Jones.

“Order your wife a pizza, Fred. Mary doesn’t need to cook for your sorry self when she’s been chasing these kids around and memorizing every damn law on the books in the Maple State.”  
  
  
  
  
  
Relief, adrenaline, and several slices of pepperoni pizza carried Jughead most of the way home that night. But when his dad’s truck turned onto the bumpy gravel road that led into the trailer park, he realized that he still had another parent to face.

“Do you think Mom’s going to be mad?” he asked in a small voice.

Instead of answering, his dad had sighed, and drummed his hand on the steering wheel a few times. Then, he reached past Jughead and opened the glove compartment, rooting around in it until he found what he was looking for – a knit grey cap with points around the brim. Jughead recognized it vaguely as something his dad had picked up at a rummage sale one cold day earlier that winter.

“Here you go, kid. Just…keep this on for tonight, and we’ll deal with it in the morning.”

His worries had turned out to be for nothing. The trailer was dark and quiet, and his mom had left a note taped to the front door: _Picked up an overnight shift at Quik Stop. Jellybean next door._

It had been dark and quiet the next morning, too, when Jughead slipped out of the trailer without waking her up. The hat kept him warm on the walk to school, and a granola bar kept him mostly full until lunch. He slept over at Archie’s that night.

The next day, he’d tried to sneak into the trailer while his mom was on the phone with his grandmother in Toledo. But she’d turned around at the sound of the front door – her eyes had narrowed as she looked at him – and suddenly the hat had felt _extremely_ warm around his ears.

Fortunately, Jellybean had chosen that moment to start wailing from the other room, and all was temporarily forgotten.  
  
  
  
  
  


It took several days, but Gladys _did_ eventually find out what he was concealing under the beanie – and when she did, she simply sighed, buzzed his hair short all around with the clippers, and called it good.

But by that point, the hat had become a habit.

And as he grew older, its presence became a comfort – tangible evidence that, once, there had been a time when his dad and Archie’s had gone to work together every day, as partners and friends.

When the whiskey bottle stayed up on the top shelf instead of permanently on the floor by his dad’s recliner.

When he had had a whole family, one that lived together under the same roof, instead of his mom and sister far away in Toledo, and his dad gone who-knows-where for days on end.

Once, there had been a time when his dad had been there for him, before anything else.  
  
  
  
  
  
A little huff from Betty brings him back to the present.

“You both _begged_ me to cut that gum out of your hair, and you know it.”

“Thank God you did,” he says lightly, consciously banishing heavy thoughts of the past. “Otherwise Archie and I would have been forced to live out the rest of our days as the world’s first pair of artificially-conjoined twins. Which – ironically, probably _would_ have gotten us into the _Guinness Book of World Records_.”

Betty smiles at his jibe, and starts fiddling with the layout again. But he knows that look in her eyes: that’s Betty Cooper’s _I have a plan_ face. He’s not going to make it easy for her, though, and so he simply waits quietly to be proven right.

It doesn’t take long. 

“Seriously though, Juggie. It wouldn’t be like last time, I promise. I got my salon badge before Mom made me quit Maple Scouts last year, and I still have all the equipment and the manual at home…”

“Why are you pushing this, Betts?” he asks. The question comes out a little harsher than he intends, but it’s too late to soften it.

She bites her lip and looks away from him for a second. “I just…you’ve been really nice lately, helping me out with investigating, and writing for the _Blue and Gold_ , and listening to me talk about everything going on with – with Polly, and – I just thought maybe I could do something that would help you out a little bit.”

He has to say no. He _needs_ to say no. Even if it didn’t require taking off the beanie – which it _would_ , so that was an immediate dealbreaker – the whole thing would just be way too…intimate. And the very fact that his brain has supplied a word like _that_ is indisputable proof that it’s a bad idea. He needs to do the right thing and refuse, in order to keep her from having to go through with something that would _definitely_ weird her out once she stopped to think about it.

But he can still feel the memory of her fingers on his cheek. Not to mention that she’s looking up at him, with those great big green Bambi eyes shining in the low light of the dusty office, giving him a pleading look, like _he’d_ actually be doing _her_ a favor instead of the other way around. And for a pivotal second or two, he hesitates.

That, of course, is when Betty pushes her advantage.

“C’mon, Jug, please? You can stay for dinner afterwards. My folks have to work late at the _Register_ tonight, and Mom left a casserole for me to warm up. If you come over and have some, she won’t be able to grill me about how much of it I ate.”

It’s a bad idea, and he knows it. But it turns out that his brain is no match for his appetite – or for the perversely protective urge that he’s always felt when reminded of Alice Cooper’s mission to police every feasible aspect of Betty’s life.

He’s not going down without at least the appearance of a fight, though, so he pretends to think it over for a second. “What’s the casserole?”

“Shepherd’s pie, extra gravy, cheesy mashed potatoes. And I can make fruit salad – or whatever kind of salad you’ll eat. And I think there’s still some chocolate ice cream in the freezer.”

_Beats the hell out of ramen noodles in the janitor’s closet for the third night this week_ , he thinks, and then sighs.

“All right, Vidal Sassoon. You win. When should I present myself for the shearing?”

**Author's Note:**

> \- Happiest of birthdays, most wonderful stillscape. If I could have commissioned something for you FROM you, I would have, because you deserve the best. Instead, you get a gift work based on [your gifset comments here](https://village-skeptic.tumblr.com/post/179773348305/sullypants-this-scene-always-makes-me-wonder) \- except with the "pining" and "fluff" dials turned to 11. 
> 
> \- Many, many thanks to sullypants and stirringsofconsciousness for beta-ing!


End file.
